HDI wrote:Ooooo , sounds like you may know the answer to this one.
I'm running Vista , yes I know !!
My preference is to put the laptop into standby instead of fully turning off because I'm sick of waiting for windows to boot up and I like to start from where I stopped the previous session !! Thing is , as days go by it gets slower and slower coming out of standby and going into standby , browser window refreshes take ages , and the hardrive seems to be running at the slightest key stroke or function !
The only way to clear it seems to be turning off and restarting ! Seems to defeat the object of standby to me !!
Any ideas please ?
Basically, the longer you have programs (including the operating system) running, the more memory they take up, and the slower the computer gets.
Servers are designed to run for months or even years between reboots, this is why they generally have shed loads of RAM, and a lot of effort is put into keeping programs reasonably efficient, hence why server versions of windows cost a lot more than home versions.
Home versions are expected to be rebooted regularly, so fewer resources are put into keeping their memory clean.
There are some things users should do however that they are not likely to know about.
1. Delete your temporary internet files via your browser
2. Delete the contents of the temp folders. There are several, the main ones are in C:\temp and for each user account in XP C:\Documents and Settings\
username\Local Settings\Temp and in Vista/Windows7 C:\users\
username\AppData\Temp
Anything in use will not allow you do delete it, in Vista/W7 you have the option to skip and do the same for any other files, one advantage they have over XP.
3. Defrag your hard drive. The Vista defragger is pretty pants, but if you google it, you can find the command prompt version which although not brilliant in that it doesn't give you a progress guide, but it does the job.
4. Increase your page file to 4096MB.
5. Increase your RAM, you want 1GB minimum, preferably 2GB.
6. Make sure your service packs and hotfixes are up to date.
7. Reboot. I know you don't want to, but you really should. At least once every couple of days.
Another thing, if you use Office applications, either leave them open when you shut down, or wait a few minutes after closing them. If they're open when windows shuts down, it knows about them and knows to wait for them to close fully, whereas if you close office then windows, windows doesn't know the office processes haven't finished shutting down and so cuts them off, leaving temporary files behind.